A civilization consists of a cluster of associated allies, clients,
dependencies, and colonies bound together by economic, political and
cultural ties. Since armed force has been the chief instrument for
bringing these elements together, the agency responsible for exercising
armed force enjoys priority in a listing of the structural institutions
of civilization.
Land owners, often acting as military chieftains, dominated the
hinterland of a civilization. The city was dominated by businessmen. The
unification of city and hinterland and the complex of cities and
hinterlands composing a civilization established a governmental
apparatus in which all ruling elements were represented. In the earlier
stages of a civilization there may have been assemblies or parliaments
composed of representatives of various interests. As the civilization
was unified by war, representation was replaced by some form of monarchy
in which one supreme commander, emperor or pharoah was the final judge
and arbiter. The monarch set up a network of public authority, regional
as well as universal, provincial as well as central, and garrisoned it
with professional soldiers and sailors paid by the monarch and
responsible to him.
Corresponding with this political structure was an economic structure
consisting of a central treasury, a uniform system of weights, measures
and values, a system of spending priorities, decided by the central
authority, a source of income: taxes, tribute, booty, sufficient to
cover expenditures.
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